


The Haunting of Thomas Barrow

by Riotstar



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Abusive Parents, Bittersweet Ending, Horror, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Nightmares, Paranormal, Period-Typical Homophobia, Psychological Trauma, This is the exact opposite of a fix-it, at best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:20:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26407129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riotstar/pseuds/Riotstar
Summary: The memory faded, flames licking at the edges of the picture, of Thomas sat alone in the hall while his parents fought over him again. He sat ringed in flame until he was a boy no more, but instead a grown man, now staring up at the coldly beautiful face of the Turkish gentleman. He was smiling, holding out a hand to Thomas, who reached for it, but as soon as the fingers of his undamaged palm brushed Pamuk's, the hand was snatched away.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Duke of Crowborough, Thomas Barrow/Jimmy Kent
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	1. Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.

**Author's Note:**

> I read a tumblr post about Downton Abbey being a comedy of manners for everyone but Thomas, who is instead trapped inside a Gothic Horror haunted house story and twenty four hours and an almost missed train later this pretentious nonsense happened. A re-telling of the series' events from a horror perspective. In keeping with the genre, this is not going to be a happy time.

Clocks were living organisms, Thomas had told Jimmy. He'd felt that way since he'd first watched his father dissect them in his workshop, taking something beautiful and whole apart until it lay before him in dozens of delicate shards. He'd always felt sad for those broken creatures, but sadder still for the ones that lay dormant in the back corner, where his father kept the ones too broken to be fixed. They lay silent, faces staring blankly at him, until occasionally one would be plucked from the herd and cannibalised for spare parts. 

He'd felt the same way about the house too, when he'd first arrived, cast off to the first employer that would have him after his father's ultimatum. “Get out, or I'll have them take you.” The house had felt like a hive of insects, all scuttling to ensure there was food on the table for their queen, with the workers left to pick up the scraps. It had been overwhelming to suddenly become a small cog in something much larger than himself, but O'Brien had taken him under her wing. “This house eats people whole,” she'd said. “But you stick with me boy, and I'll see you right.”

And so he had, forming an easy alliance that had allowed him to work his way up from hall boy to footman. He'd almost started to feel he could be happy here, until the nightmares started. 

They were hazy at first, a sense of cold, all encompassing darkness surrounding him, pulling him under until he couldn't breathe. He'd wake tangled in his sheets, or with them thrown to the floor and his face buried deep in a tear soaked pillow. He wasn't one for assuming dreams meant anything, but the feeling of being trapped, of being pulled under didn't leave him in his waking hours, and he began to feel he must formulate a plan to escape. 

His opportunity came on a visit to London. The family had been staying at a vast three story townhouse on the edge of Hyde park, owned by the duke of Crowborough's family. The young duke had caught his eye from the moment he first saw him, louche and handsome and the life of the party. At dinner he'd charmed every one, flirting with the young heiresses present just enough to make them feel wanted, without causing tension between them. But at night, it had been Thomas he'd taken to his bed, murmuring sweet nothings as Thomas had worshipped him. Afterwards he'd held him close, promising to take him away from his life at Downton if he could, to bring him south where they could be together in secret every night. But that had been a cruel game. 

Thomas' insides had been ripped apart, as his former lover held him, this time with no tenderness, as he'd watched the letters burn, and with it his chance to escape. The nightmares continued, but this time it was the duke that pushed him beneath the icy water, and held him down til he woke sobbing. 

He'd tried again during the war, signing up to train as a medic. He wasn't equipped for combat, he knew. His father had always called him soft in a way that made his derision plain. His mother had called him too sensitive, with his best interests at heart, but either way they meant the same thing. The front had been worse than he could possibly imagine, watching men be blown apart, and watching the ones who weren't become broken husks of their former selves, staring out like the blank faces of the unfixable clocks, waiting to be used up or discarded. 

He'd managed two years in hell, before he decided to pull himself out, the relief was overwhelming, despite the splintered mess the bullet had made of his left hand. He was told he would be able to use it a little one day, but it would never be the same again. The large mottled scar was grotesque, but it had got him out. Out, but back to the house. 

His dreams of drowning had been replaced by dreams of fire, surrounding him and melting his flesh until the scar on his palm was the only thing left of him. 

-

"I won't have it!" His father was screaming at his mother. "In this house! God can judge him but he will not judge me! To harbour a sinner… I will not allow it."

"But he's a child! He hasn't done anything!" His mother was pleading. "You call him a sinner but he's still our child, our little boy!" He could hear the tears in her voice.

"You see what he's like, he may not have acted on it yet but it's clear what he is." His father almost sounded resigned. "We'll send him away, to a good Catholic school, or an institution."

"I will not send my only son away, even if that's what the lord would want for him. He's our flesh and blood."

The memory faded, flames licking at the edges of the picture of Thomas sat alone in the hall while his parents fought over him again. He sat ringed in flame until he was a boy no more, but instead a grown man, now staring up at the coldly beautiful face of the Turkish gentleman. He was smiling, holding out a hand to Thomas, who reached for it, but as soon as the fingers of his undamaged palm brushed Pamuk's, the hand was snatched away.

"You forget yourself." He mocked.

"I'm sorry!" Thomas cried, but the flames were beginning to consume him, to consume Pamuk too, his appalled face melting into a mocking grin. He woke clutching his pillow to his chest, the blankets in a knot around his feet.


	2. And all I loved, I loved alone.

The house had been converted into a convalescent hospital, its grand, decadent, empty rooms now full of life. Thomas had found it easier to bear, his work giving him purpose, but he couldn't help but look at the men in the hospital's care and see shadows in their wake. 

One man in particular had the shadow of death upon him, and Thomas had tried to help. Edward had been kind to him, and Thomas loved him for it. He had loved him, and Lady Sybil had found him, blood pooling beneath his slit wrists, and Thomas had wept. Wept for Edward, for himself, and the cruel hands of fate that had driven Edward to despair, and Thomas back to this cursed place. His nightmares still ended in fire, but now he watched Edward burn with him each night. 

He had wept again when Lady Sybil died, the doctor had said something of complications during childbirth, but Thomas couldn’t shake the feeling that the house had claimed another tribute. 

-

Thomas folded the letter in his hands. Then tore it in half, and in half again, and again, until it was confetti littering the floor of his bedroom. His sister’s words, distilled down to a few horrific phrases, whirled in his head.  _ Died in childbirth. Another son. Stillborn. _ The funeral had already taken place. His father had buried his mother, and hadn’t written a word about it to him. He hadn’t known, until his sister had found out and sent him what sincere but ultimately hollow words of condolence she could manage. The pieces of torn up letter rained down on him, each little piece burning up in the air, and Edward held his hands in his own, the gashes on his wrists opening into pools of flame. 

-

Jimmy had been like a ray of sunshine, or a bolt of lightning. How could something so perfect exist in a place like this? To bring about his undoing, it turned out. O’Brien had betrayed him,and he had driven away the only bright spark left in this cursed place. He had made one big mistake, and walls had ears. He had thought he’d been lucky, when he’d somehow escaped both prison and being fired, turned out on the streets without a reference, but he was still here, trapped in this place, and Jimmy wouldn’t speak to him. Except at night, when he stood over Thomas, beautiful and terrible, his face bathed in heavenly light as he pushed Thomas beneath the flames, into the ice cold water below, and held him under. 

His chance for salvation came at the fair, when he followed Jimmy, as his protective shadow. His assailants had beaten him until he was a bruised, bloody mess, but Jimmy had escaped unscathed. Thomas had hoped his sacrifice had been enough, that the house’s appetite for his pain would be sated. It had been enough to earn him Jimmy’s forgiveness, his friendship, and Thomas was grateful for it, but the hands still pushed him beneath the flames each night, only they were no longer Jimmys. 

He smelled the smoke as he walked back down the corridor, after seeing Jimmy safely into the arms of another. The moment he opened the door was like plunging headfirst into a waking nightmare, as the flames consumed the room around him, the smoke pushing all the breath out of his chest. He gathered Lady Edith into his arms, then paused for a moment, as he saw a pale figure standing in the corner of the room in his peripheral vision, but when he turned it was gone. 

He had saved Lady Edith, but Jimmy had been taken from him. The room around him burned, and the pale figure stood in the corner, watching him slip into the void below.

-

“I’ll miss you.” His mother was holding his hand to her chest, tears in her eyes. 

“I’ll miss you too mother.” His gaze was on his feet, as he fought to keep himself from crying. The front door opened behind them. His father’s hand was on his mother’s shoulder.

“Let him go.” Thomas looked up to see his father’s grip tighten. His mother stood on her toes and gave him one last kiss on his check, before she released him. His father steered her back into the house and turned to face him. 

“If I ever see you come back here, I’ll call the police, is that clear.” His father's voice was cold, devoid of feeling. 

“What did I do that’s so wrong to you?” Thomas asked, a risky question that left his lips before he had time to stop it. 

“You are an abomination. Your very presence in this house cast shame upon us all.” His father lunged towards him, hands grasping and pushing, and Thomas thrashed about in the water, as all the heat was drawn from his bones, even as the house burned around them.


	3. I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the hardest chapter to write because I had to deal with... season 5. Conversion therapy is a horrific, abusive practise and I can't believe it's still a thing in 2020. I hope the description of the seizures brought on by electroconvulsive therapy are ok, I did run it by a friend who has epilepsy, and I didn't want to vague out the details of what Thomas put himself through as much as they did in the show.

Jimmy’s departure had been the straw that broke him. He had watched the one thing he wanted the most leave, and resolved that he couldn’t go on feeling like this. He had to find a way to fix it. To rid himself of these thoughts, these shameful desires, then maybe the house would release its grip on him. 

The doctor’s office was strangely barren, compared to the hospital in Ripon. Instead of wooden panelling and small paintings, the grey walls had only one decoration, a large, plain wooden cross nailed above the reception desk. Thomas tried not to look directly at it, as though staring at it too long would be like staring into the sun. 

The doctor’s machine had made him convulse violently, gasping for air between shocks, he felt hands dragging him under again, ice cold liquid filling his lungs, and his father standing over him, pushing him deeper.

Afterwards he felt the same way he had after the fair, every muscle in his body aching, but no one had come to his bedside.

The days that followed had felt like minutes, as he went through the motions of his work, not committing any of it to memory. The doctor had given him a case full of pills and vials of liquid, to continue the treatment, and he followed the course diligently. Miss Baxter and Anna had expressed concern, but he waved them off. Each time he looked in the mirror, a corpse stared back at him, and the dark figure lurked in the corner of his eye. 

His nightmares became reality, as he lay awake each night, not dreaming, but still bathed in fire. Eventually, the pain had been too much to bear. He had gone to Baxter for help, and she’d taken him to Doctor Clarkson. She’d even called him brave. He didn’t deserve her kindness, but she had given it anyway, and he was grateful, but the gratitude was tinged with fear. This house swallowed people whole, and he’d brought her here. 

-

“Pathetic!” His father shouted, as Thomas cowered under the table, weeping silently. He’d broken one of the clocks in his father’s shop, and he was so very, very sorry. 

“Come out and face your punishment boy!” His father had taken off his belt, had meant to put him over his knee, but Thomas had ran instead. His father's arm reached beneath the table and pulled him out by his shirt front. The floor opened up beneath them both, and they were falling, through the dark void. Thomas tried to swim to the surface, but his father's bloated, swollen, rotting face stared glass eyed up at him, one hand wrapped tight around his ankle.

Thomas woke to a different face looming over him, this one not bloated but gaunt and white eyed. He screamed in terror and closed his eyes again, scrambling up the bed until the back of his skull collided with the headboard, but when he opened them again the spectre was gone. 


	4. Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.

Thomas’s wounds slowly faded, and the house seemed sated. He had offered it his flesh and blood, and it had taken it, but the dreams slowly, gradually began to leave him be. He drifted into a comfortable routine, until Mr Carson summoned him into his office one morning.

“You’re not a creature of today.” Mr Carson had told him. So this was it, his time was up. Perhaps the house was finally letting him go, or perhaps it had used him for all he had and he was now to be discarded, consigned to a back corner where broken things were left to be forgotten. 

His search for a new employer did not go well. He’d applied to every suitable vacancy, had even written to the last address he had for Jimmy, in the vain hope that he could suggest somewhere nearby, but his letter had been returned with a note saying Jimmy was no longer in their employ. His heart sank at the news, and it strengthened his resolve to stay in Yorkshire, for if he had no way to contact Jimmy, perhaps at least Jimmy could one day find him, if he wished to.

He awoke one morning with a pounding headache, and a faint ticking noise in his ears. 

The rhythm of it was slow at first, like water dripping from a tap that hadn’t been turned off fully. Thomas tried to push it from his mind, but it didn’t go away. He felt wound tight, flinching in anticipation of the next _tick - tick._ His hands twitched, and he blinked each time he heard it. 

He’d tried to distract himself with his work, and by helping Andy learn to read. His mind was quieter when he was huddled over a book with the young footman, painstakingly going through each letter and sound, but when he was alone, the _tick - tick - tick_ became the _thud - thud - thud_ of his father's footsteps around the workshop, and Thomas felt the urge to hide, anticipating his father’s belt on his rear, or his fist in his face.

Andy began his lessons at the village school, and Thomas had nothing to distract himself with. The _tick- tick- tick- ticks_ grew louder, and closer together, like they were driving him towards something. Thomas began to lose hope, as his departure from the house grew nearer, and he was no closer to finding anywhere else to go. Clearly, he would not be allowed his escape.

He awoke one morning with a deep sense of dread, that chilled him to marrow in his bones. The tick tick ticking was more insistent than ever. He dressed in a daze and sat silent at the breakfast table, ignoring his food and barely taking in the conversations around him, until Carson mentioned his job search again, and the next _tick_ was punctuated with an accompanying, heavy _tock_. 

He returned to his room after the family had been served their breakfast, the _tick tock tick tock_ ringing in his ears, until it grew deafening, until with terrible clarity he knew what he had to do.

As soon as he made up his mind, the noise in his head was silenced. He left his room, and was surprised to see Anna and Miss Baxter in the hall. They glanced at him, with concern, or perhaps suspicion in their eyes.

"Are you alright Mr Barrow?" Anna had asked. 

"Of course, why wouldn’t I be?" Came his automatic reply. His voice sounded far away, as though it belonged to someone else.

-

He drew himself a bath, partly as a way to delay the inevitable, to give himself a chance to change his mind, and partly so whichever unfortunate soul found him would not have a mess to clean up. He caught sight of himself in the mirror as he began to remove his outer clothes with slow, fastidious care, his skin deathly pale in stark contrast to his jet black hair. He looked down to undo his shirt buttons, turning to hang it gently on the wooden rail beside him, then glanced back at his reflection.

Behind him, in the tub, Edward sat, beckoning.


	5. It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.

When he turned to face the bath, Edward was gone, but he felt cool hands on his shoulders, and gentle pressure, urging him towards it. 

“It’s alright, my love.” A voice that was not quite Edward’s whispered, a chill breath on his ear. Thomas let himself be hastened towards the tub.

The water was tepid, but not unpleasant. He had lain a razor blade out on the lip of the bath before he’d undressed. He picked it up, toying with it between his fingers, his own heart pounding in his ears, drowning out the whispers that urged him on. The ghosts of Edward, Pamuk and his father stood over him, watching him silently, waiting. Gritting his teeth, he sliced, one wrist, then the other. 

Fire, scorching heat, burned through him from the cuts, and he watched the water turn red, as he was dragged beneath, into ice cold darkness.

-

When he awoke, he was in his own bed. Someone had changed his clothes, and bandaged his wrists. Fear gripped him at first, but the ticking sound did not return, nor did the nightmares. Though his escape hadn’t gone as planned, perhaps he had finally offered enough to sate the ghosts that taunted him.

Lady Mary brought Master George to him, and the boy handed him an orange, an offering of kindness and forgiveness. It was time to move on.

-

The new job offer came, and Thomas took it. He said his goodbyes, and was surprised at how many of the house's inhabitants seemed sorry to see him go. It wasn't long before he began to miss them. Distance made the weight of everything that had happened there seem like one long bad dream, the kind that slipped away into the ether the moment the dreamer began to wake. His memories of the place grew warmer, softer and brighter. 

He missed having people to talk too, missed the children, missed Baxter and Mrs Hughes, Andy and Anna. He missed the piano in the servants hall that reminded him of Jimmy. He even missed having Bates to antagonise.

When the chance came to return, he took it. The house seemed smaller than he remembered, and he couldn't imagine what had made him so afraid of it.

For the first time he could remember, he was almost happy.


	6. Deep in earth my love is lying, and I must weep alone.

The fog that hung over the house that evening was so dense that Thomas could barely see to the other end of the yard, as he stood by the back door, smoke curling out of his lips to join the mist about him. He had all but locked the doors, ready to go up for the night. His mind was preoccupied with thoughts of an upcoming dinner to celebrate Master George’s birthday. It would be a small affair, the boy was too young to have any friends outside his siblings, but Thomas and Lady Mary had been conspiring to make it fun all the same. He was musing over what to get him as a present, when a shape stepped out of the fog shrouded arch that separated the small courtyard from the garage. 

His heart was in his mouth. He would recognise that silhouette anywhere, would follow it to the ends of the earth if he’d let him. His newsboy cap was pulled low, casting a shadow over his eyes, and his shoulders were hunched, but it was unmistakably, wondrously, miraculously Jimmy. Thomas started towards him, both of them advancing until they were half a dozen feet apart, but the Jimmy shape came to halt first and called out, “Don’t come any closer.” His voice sounded far away, like more than the mist separated them. 

“Jimmy? What are you doing here?” Thomas asked, in astonished delight.

“My new employers are visiting someone in the area, I don’t have long, but... I wanted to see you.” Jimmy smiled under the brim of his cap.

“I wrote to you, but I never got a reply. How are you?”

“I’ve been better. An’ I’m sorry Thomas, sorry for everything.”

“What are you talking about?” Thomas tried to take a step forward, but Jimmy retreated a step at the same time. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you wanted.” Jimmy’s voice was beginning to crack, as he seemed to fray at the seams. “I wanted to.” He whispered, but Thomas heard it as loud as if it had been a shout. “We’ll see each other again soon, but I needed you to know.” With that, Jimmy turned, and strode implausibly fast back in to the opaque missed that filled the arch way, and Thomas ran after him, calling his name, but as he passed under the arch he lost sight of him, and Thomas was left stood gazing into the fog, the chill air biting at his face and hands, like the kiss of death. 

Weeks passed. Master George's party had been a great success. Thomas had given him a set of small tin soldiers, and his little friend had been thrilled. He'd taken to playing with them in the upstairs hall, outside the nursery, setting up heroic battle scenes. One morning, the nanny had stood on one of them, crushing it's left hand, and Master George was inconsolable, until Thomas had shown him his gloved hand and told him, "Don't worry, the same thing happened to me in the war, and I'm still standing!" 

The little tin shoulder with the mangled hand had been known as 'Corporal Bawwow' thereafter.

Jimmy did not return.

Thomas was beginning to think he had imagined the whole thing, when he walked into his office one morning to find Mrs Hughes waiting for him. Her face looked grim. She held an envelope in her hand. 

“You’d better sit down.” She gestured to his chair, waiting by the doorway until he’d taken his seat, silent in response to her clear distress. She sat across from him, a look of intense sympathy ready on her face. “You remember James, of course.” She began, and Thomas’s stomach turned. “I know you were very fond of him.” Thomas nodded silently. “Well, I’ve had bad news.” Silent clock faces. Ice cold water. Fire seared wrists. “The housekeeper at his new place wrote to me. He’s dead.” 

Mrs Hughes was looking at him like he was a small, fragile thing. Something inside Thomas cracked open at her words, and the last light in the world went out. 


	7. The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?

“How did it happen?” Thomas managed to choke out, his voice hoarse. 

“He was found unconscious in an alley in York, and he'd been badly beaten. They took him to the hospital, but he had a severe head injury, he never woke up." Mrs Hughes sounded pained.

They sat in silence for a while, until Thomas remembered where he was enough to ask. “Do they know who did it?”

“They think it may have been a robbery, or he may have been caught up in a fight between two rival gangs.” Thomas could feel her watching him cautiously, but he was preoccupied with staring at his wrists, feeling the scars begin to itch and burn, begging him to claw them open. “They have a few leads, but they're not hopeful.”

"When did it… when they found him, how long ago?" Thomas couldn't think, couldn't bear the kindness Mrs Hughes was radiating.

"A few weeks ago." She replied. Cold dread began to seep into his bones.

"Thank you for telling me." Thomas's voice sounded unnaturally calm, even to himself. He stood up, taking a step towards the door as if he were about to leave, but Mrs Hughes caught him by the elbow.

"If you need a moment…" She began.

"No, thank you." He brushed her off. "I think I'd like to get back to my duties." Mrs Hughes looked like she didn't believe him, but she couldn't force him to stay.

Thomas made his way up the servants' staircase in a daze. So this was it, his true final punishment. The house had taken Edward from him, and Lady Sybil, had taken his flesh, his blood and his sanity as tribute, and he had thought it had finally been enough. 

Now it had taken the one thing that mattered the most to him, his sun and stars, his bright beacon of life and light, because he had not been there to protect him.

He thought of Jimmy, scared and alone, taking the beating he should have been there to take for him, his beautiful face bloody and his head split open on the ground. The cold water rose, and he stood halfway up the staircase, clutching the bannister and gasping for air, dry sobs escaping his chest. 

That the night Jimmy had died was the same night Thomas saw him in the courtyard was a fact as certain to him as the ground beneath his feet. The ground in which Jimmy's body now lay, a pretty shell without any of Jimmy's spark. 

Eventually the pressure in his chest eased enough that he finished his ascent, coming out on to the upstairs landing.

Master George was playing with his toy soldiers in the hall. He had tied a handkerchief to Corporal Bawwow, to form a rudimentary parachute. He leant over the banister, ready to let the soldier drop, and Thomas saw a familiar pale, gaunt figure behind the boy, it's blank eyes staring directly at him like burning, white hot coals.

The pale figure of his father's mouth distended, his jaw opening unnaturally wide as he laughed, reaching out a hand and placing in on Master George's back. Thomas yelled 'No!' and darted forward. 

His father's ghost pushed, and George began to tumble over the bannister, as Thomas reached out for him. A piercing scream that could only be Lady Mary rang out from the other side of the gallery.

He grabbed the boy by the sailor collar, his other hand on the bannister, but as he pulled Master George up and back to safety, his gloved hand slipped, and Thomas fell, through ice cold water, towards the fire below.

-

Thomas opened his eyes. 

He'd expected hell, but instead found himself lying on the crimson carpet at the bottom of the stairs, his arms and legs contorted in an unnatural shape. Lady Mary stood at the top of the stairs, cradling Master George to her chest and shouting for aid.

Thomas lay gazing at the white marble statue of two children that stood above the last few steps, as other members of the household swam in and out of his peripheral vision, though he could no longer hear them. He couldn't feel the pain he knew he should be in either.

He felt consciousness slowly slip away, the bustle of activity around him growing ever more distant, until he found he was no longer staring at the white marble statue, but at a figure, dressed in a pale grey linen suit and bathed in white, heavenly light. 

Jimmy reached out a hand to him.

"It's ok, Thomas." Jimmy, more beautiful than he'd ever seen him, was waiting for him. "You're safe now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The house always wins, sorry, I don't make the rules :P
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's got this far, the final chapter will be the sweet half of the bittersweet ending for those who want it <3


	8. Even in the grave, all is not lost.

Everyone at Downton had dismissed the children’s new imaginary friends as an elaborate shared game at first. They had started speaking to people who weren’t there, calling them ‘Uncle Tommy’ and ‘Uncle Jimmy’.

It was common enough for children to invent such characters that no one had paid it any mind, until one morning Mrs Patmore walked into the servants hall to find Master George playing the piano, his short fingers carefully plodding out the notes to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and no one in the house could account for how he'd learnt it. No one in the current household knew how to play. There had been a few footmen in the past that could, but Master George would have been far too young to have learnt it from them. When no one came forward to claim they were responsible, it was dismissed as some kind of prodigious talent and nothing more was said on the subject. But Master George wasn't the only Crawley child who seemed to have access to information they had no cause to know.

Tom had been playing hospital with Little Sybbie, letting her pretend to be a nurse, like her mother, and diagnose him with all kinds of made up ailments and injuries. As she was bandaging the imaginary wounds, she'd come out with stories about her mother that he was sure he hadn't told her. Stories from the time Downton had been a convalescent hospital, and before at the hospital in the village. He'd asked Dr Clarkson if he'd told her, though it seemed unlikely. He denied it, and Tom couldn't think who else would know, except maybe Barrow, but if she'd heard them from him, she had an extremely good memory for such a young child.

The final confirmation that something unusual was going on came when the nanny had heard Caroline crying in the nursery, having woken in the night. She was about to enter and try and sooth her back to sleep, when she heard a soft, distant male voice singing a lullaby. Thinking it must be the girl's father, she opened the door a crack to be sure, but there was no one in the room but the three children, Caroline gurgling happily in her crib and the others sleeping peacefully in their beds. 

The unexplained phenomena continued, and though the nanny and their parents had tried to get some kind of explanation out of the children, they continued only to refer to the mysterious characters as Uncle Tommy and Uncle Jimmy, as though they were as unremarkable as any other member of the household, and wouldn't elaborate further. The more superstitious among them had their theories, but Mrs Hughes and Lord Grantham were in agreement that as it all seemed harmless enough, it was best not to dwell on it.

-

The morning of Caroline Talbot's wedding was blissfully bright, the sky a cheerful, brilliant blue. As the young Lady and her new husband exited the church, Mrs Hughes hung back from the crowd, leant on her cane and watched, a satisfied smile on her lips at the thought of another generation of Crawley's leaving the nest, happy and healthy, when she caught a glimpse of two figures in the corner of her eye.

Turning, she would've sworn she saw two men, watching as she was, arm in arm. Men she knew from long ago, but before she could fix her eyes on them fully they had vanished.

Nevertheless, it explained everything. She smiled wider, and whispered a soft 'thank you' to no one in particular. The wind rustled the trees of the churchyard in response, and she knew all was well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and happy Halloween! <3


End file.
